


An Unideal Place for a Romantic Evening

by storyandshark



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical spiders, First Date, First Kiss, I'll be honest I added the spiders just so I could use that tag, M/M, Mild Gore, Mirrors, heartfelt conversations during a shared near-death experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyandshark/pseuds/storyandshark
Summary: Martin tries to take Jon on a date. He really tries. But of course, when you work for the Magnus Institute, nothing can ever go right. And when you try to take someone on a date to a museum and end up in a house of horrors instead, that's pretty much the epitome of things not going right.





	An Unideal Place for a Romantic Evening

**Author's Note:**

> This can't take place literally anywhere in the canon timeline but fuck it, I had fun

"You're sure this is the place?” Jon asks, looking up at the building in front of them.

“I think so.” Martin pulls out the sticky note from his pocket and checks the number written on it. “I remember that Dave said it was 725 when he told me about it, and that's what I've got on here too.”

“Hm.” Jon looks up at the building in front of them, which doesn't look quite the way either of them expected.

The building is _supposed_ to be a museum. It's three, maybe four stories tall. The windows are all covered by thick black curtains, leaving no way to get a look inside. Otherwise, it looks pretty similar to the other buildings around it: unremarkable and uninteresting. There's no sign indicating what it is, just three brass numbers stuck next to the door, '725.' When Martin had asked about museums, Dave had said this was a small, family-run place, with a bunch of rare artifacts and priceless objects inside it. He had described it as a bit of a diamond in the rough type, and that it was a lot better inside than outside. At the moment, Martin is kind of inclined to doubt him.

“If- if this isn't okay, we can go somewhere else,” Martin says.

“No, no, this is fine,” Jon says, pulling his jacket tighter around his shoulders. “Let's just go inside.”

It's a cold October evening, the darkened sky filled with a crisp wind and the first few flakes of snow beginning to drift down. “Oh, um, yeah,” Martin says. “Let's... do that.”

Jon goes up to the door and pauses for a moment, then knocks. Not even half a second later, a young woman opens the door. “Hi!” she says, a wide smile spreading over her face. “Nice to see some customers! Come on in; it's not often we get people wanting to visit.”

Jon and Martin both shuffle inside and the woman closes the door behind them. “I'm Abigail, by the way,” she says. “You two just wait right here. I'll be back in a moment.”

She exits through another door on the opposite side of the room, which is some sort of lobby. There's an old couch, a scratched up coffee table, and a coat rack with two coats already hanging on it. The walls have some faded floral wallpaper and the carpets are a truly awful shade of beigy-yellow. Beside the door the woman just went through, there's a pair of slightly tarnished lift doors. There's not even any decor on the walls to make it look slightly better.

Martin opens his mouth to apologize, to suggest they go somewhere else, but before he has a chance, Abigail comes back through the door with two other people behind her. They're a man and woman that look like they're both in their late twenties.

“This is Cathy and Will,” Abigail says, pointing at the couple. “They're the other patrons visiting our fine museum at the moment, and I'm going to take all of you on the tour.”

Hadn't she just said they didn't get customers often? It's a little weird that there are two other people here at the exact same time. Jon seems like he's noticed that too.

“I thought-” he starts.

Abigail interrupts, and her words immediately banish the thoughts of the amount of patrons. “Now, I will need to secure your payment before we enter the museum itself. Would you like the couples discount?”

“Oh!” Martin says, because he literally can't think of anything else to say.

“I- um, I don't-” Jon says, clearly faring no better than Martin.

Martin is at a complete loss. They're here on a date, a date that Martin is bringing Jon on and Jon agreed to, but Martin isn't sure what stage their relationship is in, and he doesn't want to make assumptions and maybe offend Jon in some way. He wouldn't say they're a _couple_ yet, necessarily, but does it count if you're on a date? And they both did kind of agree that they wanted to try out a relationship, unless maybe that's not what they're doing? What if Jon doesn't realize that Martin wanted to take him on a date and thinks they're just here for research or something? What had Martin said, exactly, when he'd asked? He doesn't remember, and he really, really needs to, because if somehow Jon could have interpreted it differently Martin needs to figure it out now because he doesn't want to say something that would ruin their relationship before it starts.

“Um, yes, that's fine,” Jon says, breaking Martin out of his downward spiral of panic.

“It- it is?” Martin says before he can stop himself.

Jon looks even more taken aback. “I- I thought you... I-” He clears his throat and refocuses. “Yes. Unless you-”

“No no no no, that's good, that's what I, um…” Martin loses his train of thought, then digs into his pocket for his wallet so he can actually pay. “How much is it?”

Abigail tells him the price, and thankfully it's not completely unaffordable. Partially, Martin realizes, due to the discount. He hands her the money and she pockets it, still smiling. The other patrons look a little annoyed by the time it's taken to get this far. Abigail goes into the back room again and returns a moment later with a small wicker basket.

“I'll need you all to turn your phones or cameras in here, please. Some of our exhibits are very sensitive, and we're very protective of them.”

Everyone obliges, placing their phones, and in Cathy's case a camera, into the basket, which Abigail puts back into the room. Then she goes and presses the button on the lift, beckoning for everyone to follow her.

“Now, we're going to start from the top up,” she says as they pile into the lift that's slightly too small for all of them. “On our fourth floor, we have a collection of various items from the Renaissance period.”

She continues talking as the lift starts to rise, but Martin loses focus. They're all standing very close together, and he's extremely conscious of how close to Jon he is. Martin could reach over and hold his hand if he wanted to. He does want to. He's not brave enough to do it. He does end up holding Jon's hand later, but not because he actually means to.

The lights in the lift go out. There's a second of nervous muttering, and Abigail says something about how the lights should come back on in just a minute. There's a soft ding as they reach the top floor, but the doors don't open. Martin can't see anything, but he can hear the shuffling and the soft grunt as someone tries to pry open the doors. They manage to open them enough that a sliver of light gets through, but then the doors slam shut again and there's a solid round of swearing and mumbling about smashed fingers. Then there's nothing but the sound of breathing, growing slightly more rapid with every second that passes where the doors don't open and the lights stay out. Martin can feel his heart begin to beat faster.

“Well, this is fun,” Jon says drily.

And the lift _drops_.

One second they're at the top, and the next they're plummeting toward the bottom. There's a collective scream from all six people in the lift. Martin reflexively reaches out and grabs the closest thing to him, which happens to be Jon's hand, although now he's more preoccupied with the possible imminent death than his date. The lift suddenly jerks to a stop, the momentum sending everyone crashing to the floor. Martin feels someone fall on top of him, but in the darkness can't tell who it is.

They all catch their breath. The lift seems still enough, and considering it's already dropped what felt like all the floors, it shouldn't do so again. Someone laughs nervously, edging into near hysteria before they fall silent. Martin tries to calm his breathing, but he can feel himself still almost hyperventilating. It's dark and they fell and clearly no one knows what to do. Slowly, everyone gets back to their feet.

“Abigail, do you have a phone?” Martin asks, although he doesn't have much hope.

“No,” she says. “I left it back with the others.”

“Great,” Jon mutters.

“I'm going to try to climb out the top panel,” says a voice Martin doesn't recognize, though he thinks it's probably Will. “I can try to call for help.”

“Hold on,” says a voice that's probably Cathy. “I've got a penlight.”

There's a soft click and a narrow beam of light appears. Will takes it and shines it up at the top of the lift. There is a hatch up there, which Martin hadn't bothered to look for when they'd first gotten into the lift. Will must get a boost from someone, as the light the penlight is giving off nearly vanishes entirely as it is lifted near the ceiling. Will grunts softly and there's a creak and metallic thunk as the hatch opens. The beam of light shines upward into the inky blackness of the shaft.

“Okay, just give me a bit more of a boost and I can-”

Will never gets to finish. The lights in the lift come back on, and Martin breathes a sigh of relief as they push the darkness backs. Relief that vanishes along with Will. He's suddenly yanked through the hatch like a marionette pulled up by its strings. He screams sharply, a sound that's cut off as quickly as it starts and is echoed by everyone still remaining in the lift. Martin looks up into the shaft, trying to see what happened, but the lights in the lift blink once, twice, then go out completely once again. The small beam of the penlight is visible now, resting on the edge of the hatch with no hand to hold it.

“Will?” Cathy calls into the darkness. “Will!”

A scream comes in reply, distant and agonized. Martin squeezes Jon's hand harder, shutting his eyes and trying to make whatever is happening stop. It doesn't work, of course.

“We need…” Jon says, breathing rapid and heavy. “We need to get out of this lift.”

And the lift goes back up. The ascent is just as rough as the descent, and the jolt as it stops sends Martin's feet off the floor. The penlight falls from the hatch and onto the floor of the lift. The lights come on again, and this time it's not comfort that Martin feels.

There's something reaching in through the hatch. It has a hand with five fingers and an arm and a face with all the features, but it's about as human as Prentiss was. Its skin is a mottled, sickly gray and all its limbs are far too long. Its mouth is open in a low snarl, its matted black hair hanging down in strands long enough to nearly brush against the people in the lift. Its hands are tipped with claws that are reaching, reaching down, ready to tear into whoever it can touch. Martin screams and presses as far away from the thing as he can.

And then the lights go out and the lift drops again. In the split second the lights remain, Martin can see the rest of the thing clinging onto the side of the shaft wall, the lift pulling away from it as it falls. The impact at the bottom isn't as hard, but Martin still feels it jarring in his bones. The lights flash on again.

“Get the hatch get the hatch _get the hatch_ ,” Martin says as he thinks he sees a silhouette above them.

Cathy practically launches herself upward, grabbing onto the side of the hole and pulling herself up. She starts to get the hatch closed, but stops about halfway.

“Will,” she whispers, and is gone as _something_ takes hold of her and pulls her away before anyone has time to do anything.

The hatch slams shut as she disappears. The lift rockets back up, lights flickering on and off irregularly. Then back down, then back up, over and over until Martin can't tell what way they're going. And suddenly, it just stops. The lights come on and stay on. There's no sound, no sign of breaking machinery or monsters or people being ripped apart by claws in the dark. Everyone remaining tries to catch their breath. Martin strains his ears to try and hear anything that might be coming for them, but hears nothing.

“Martin,” Jon says after a couple minutes have passed, “you're crushing my hand.”

“Oh,” Martin manages to stammer out as he lets go of Jon's hand. “Sorry.”

“What was that thing?” Jon says, voice shaking just a little bit.

“I don't know,” Abigail says. “It isn't... I don't…” She puts her face in her hands.

Martin wants to do something to comfort her, but the only this his addled brain supplies is tea, which is not a feasible option and would most definitely not help in this situation. Jon clearly doesn't know what to do either, since he's currently just standing there and looking like he's thinking. He seems almost unfazed at the moment, though that's probably the adrenaline. Martin can feel panic creeping in around the edges of his mind and frantically tries to push it away. It would _not_ be good to have a panic attack in this lift right now. The space already feels small and there's a monster after them and there's nothing they can use to fight it and there's a good chance that it's going to kill them. Actually, thinking about it is making it worse, and that's not very good for not having a panic attack.

“Martin,” Jon says, apparently noticing Martin's current state of mind.

“No, it's _fine_ , I'm _fine_ , we just need to get out of this lift,” Martin answers.

As if on cue, the doors open. Except it's not the doors the entered through, it's a set of doors on the back of the lift that Martin hadn't even paid attention to when they'd first gotten in. All at once, the three of them rush out, eager to get out of the lift. The hallway they enter is dark, but not nearly as dark as the lift had been, and that alone is a marked improvement. There doesn't look to be anything in the hallway, no furniture or decorations or lurking monsters, although Martin can't see all the way down it. The lift doors close again behind them, and Martin notices that there's no buttons on the wall to get it to open again.

And then the reality of the situation sets in. “Oh my God,” Abigail says as if she's reading Martin's mind. “They're really... that thing... they're _dead_.”

“They- maybe- maybe they're-” Martin attempts, but he can't even finish the thought because he's not at all convinced, and he's a little shaken after seeing two people getting killed.

“I don't know what that thing is,” Jon mutters to himself, sounding frantic and confused, barely holding himself together with trying to think through what's happening. “Buried? Vast? No. Hunt? Stranger? No no no _no_ -”

Martin reaches toward him, then decides against it. “Jon, it's not-”

“A Leitner?”

“Jon-”

Jon steps up to Abigail. “Where did you get the things in this museum? Who did you buy them from?”

“I- I don't-”

“Mikaele Salesa? Did you buy anything from Mikaele Salesa?” Martin knows this tone in Jon's voice, recognizes it from when he was trying to get answers about Gertrude and when Martin had to tell him about lying on his CV.

Martin weakly and ineffectually tries to interject. “This isn't helping.”

Abigail seems to be doing about as well as Martin had when Jon had interrogated him. “What? Who- what do you mean?”

“Did you buy any of the-”

“Jon, this isn't helping-”

“I don't know what you're talking-”

“Could be causing-”

“We just have to-”

“Inherited it-”

Their overlapping conversation is cut off by a noise from the lift. It dings softly and the doors begin to open. The light flooding into the hallway is almost blinding, but it's clear to see that there is something inside of it, and that something is not a person. Martin wants to take off running, but he feels frozen, dragged back to when he ran from the worms and left Jon and Tim behind and they could have _died_ -

“Go! Now!” Jon shouts.

Martin snaps out of it. He's not the best runner, but Jon isn't either, and Martin manages to keep up with him. From somewhere behind them, Abigail screams. The hallway quickly turns too dark to see in front of them and the lift closes behind them, plunging them once again into total darkness. Martin slams into Jon's back as Jon stops suddenly, sending them both tumbling to the floor with a startled shout.

“Oh God oh God oh God,” Martin says, straining his eyes to try and find the monster.

“Where is it?” Jon says as he quickly untangles himself from Martin.

“I don't know, I can't see.” Martin doesn't dare to move, barely dares to breathe.

“Where did it- ha!”

The hallway is suddenly filled with light. Jon is sprawled on the ground a few feet away next to a small table he must have knocked over, holding a torch that he's now shining back toward the lift. The bulb is just strong enough to illuminate the entire hallway, showing that there's nothing there. No monster, and no Abigail. She's gone too, and Martin knows that she didn't run past them.

“Shit,” Jon says.

“What do we do?” Martin asks, hoping against all odds that maybe Jon has some idea.

Jon just breathes a wry laugh. “I was about to ask you the same thing. I don't suppose a fire extinguisher would work this time.”

Martin's legs shake as he gets to his feet and extends a hand to Jon. “I don't- I don't think so. I don't know.”

Jon grunts as Martin helps pull him up. “It must have gone back into the lift.”

He shines the torch back at the lift, showing there's still nothing there. The hallway continues for a short distance, then turns left and ends in a door, which Jon shines the beam at for a few seconds. It's an old looking door, with scratches running down it that look like claw marks. Jon makes a point to shine the light everywhere else but the door, making sure that nothing's going to come out of the dark and kill them. Once he's made sure, he relaxes. No, relaxes isn't the right word. He wilts, sinking back down to the floor and pulling his knees up to his chest.

“I- um…” Martin crouches down next to Jon, trying to say something but not knowing what.

“I don't know what to do,” Jon mumbles, almost too quiet for Martin to hear. “Three people just died and I don't know what to do.”

Martin _really_ wants to tell him that reminding him that isn't helping, because Martin's been trying not to think about it as much as possible so he doesn't go into shock and/or a panic attack right now. But he doesn't, because if he does then that would mean saying that he isn't okay, and he _needs_ to be okay right now because... He just needs to. Jon needs someone to be okay right now, and considering Martin is the only person here still alive- No. He's not going to think about that. Maybe they're not really dead, or maybe they are but neither of them can do anything about it right now.

“Well,” Martin says, choking down the pressing fear, “we can't go back to the lift, so... I guess the only thing we can do is go through that door.”

Jon gets to his feet, taking a stabilizing breath. “Right. Let's just... get this over with.”

Martin follows close behind him as he goes to open the door, maybe a bit too close but at this point he's almost stopped noticing. The door creaks loudly and ominously as Jon pushes it open, though it doesn't look like there's any monsters immediately inside it. Instead, there's mirrors, tall enough to reach the ceiling. Martin can see his and Jon's reflections on several different mirrors at once, faces mostly obscured by shadows where the beam of the torch doesn't reach.

“This isn't an artifact,” Jon says, staring into the mirror closest to them.

Martin can't help but be reminded off the warped corridors that he and Tim had been trapped in for what felt like days. “Is it- is it, you know?” He wiggles his fingers to mime the man — the thing — that had opened the door for them then.

“Michael? No.” Jon shines the torch beam around. “It looks like a mirror maze.”

“Oh. I've never been in one before.”

Jon shrugs. “My grandmother took me to one once. It was... frustrating.”

“Well, it's- it's definitely weird, but I don't think it'll be too bad.” Martin tentatively steps into the mirror maze. “You just have to not walk toward your reflection.”

That proves to be easier said than done, as Martin promptly runs face first into a mirror. Jon makes a noise that Martin thinks might be a laugh. “Careful,” he says, and Martin feels his face redden.

Martin tries to turn back to look at him, getting disoriented for a few seconds before he finally finds the actual Jon, not his reflection. “Okay, maybe it's a bit harder than I thought.”

Jon sighs and steps forward. “I think it would be best to-”

The door slams shut as soon as he's through the threshold. Martin staggers back into the mirror. Jon jumps about a full foot into the air with a startled yelp that in any other context Martin would find kind of adorable. Jon immediately tries to open the door again, but there's no knob on this side and no other way to pull it. He sighs and turns away from the door.

“Well,” Martin says with a nervous laugh. “I guess- I guess we're not going back that way.”

“No, I suppose we're not.”

“So... I guess we have to go through the mirror maze.”

Jon steps forward to Martin, or attempts to and steps toward several reflections first. “Right. We should try to stick together.”

They stand there in awkward silence for several seconds. Martin wants to wait for Jon to go, since he's not keen on humiliating himself in front of his crush (date. Oh God, this whole thing has technically been a _date_ ) by walking into a mirror again. At first Martin thinks Jon is waiting for him to go, but then Jon hesitantly reaches out and takes Martin's hand.

“So we- um, so we don't get separated,” Jon explains, and... is he blushing? No, he couldn't be, definitely not, and Martin's not going to think about that either, because that's a whole other can of worms that he doesn't particularly want to open at the moment.

They start through the mirrors. It's much more difficult to navigate than Martin had anticipated. The mirrors are positioned at angles so they reflect each other and surround them on every side, and it's impossible to tell how close the mirrors are until Jon and Martin have almost run into them. After a minute, Jon shines the torch at the ground and uses the seams between the mirror and the floor to see where they are, but that doesn't help much with getting through the actual maze. It feels like they're walking in circles. They probably are walking in circles. At least there's no monsters.

It only takes a few seconds to discover he was wrong. Martin catches a glimpse of something in the mirrors. It's hard to see, and he's unsure of what it is, but there's something else in there with them. Something vaguely human shaped, streaked in shades of red. Martin stops in his tracks, peering into the mirrors that surround them.

Jon stops when he realizes Martin isn't walking anymore, turning back to him with a puzzled look. “What- oh.”

The thing in the mirrors becomes gradually clear, and Martin feels himself tense and his stomach churn as he sees what it is. It's Cathy. Or, well, it used to be. Her head is tilted much too far to the side. What's left of her mouth is grinning widely. Pieces of her flesh are stripped and hanging, skin peeling off her face and arms and legs, dripping blood onto the floor. Worst of all is her torso, with a gaping split down the middle, her organs spilling out of it. She drags the long trail of her intestines as she shambles forward. She holds a butcher's knife in her hand, blade streaked with blood and gore. She surrounds Jon and Martin at all sides, her reflection multiplied infinitely by the mirrors, hundreds of copies coming slowly toward them with no way to tell which one is real.

Martin doesn't freeze this time. He grips tighter to Jon's hand, making sure that they won't get separated, and he runs. Jon swears sharply as he's caught off guard by Martin pulling him along. Martin still has no idea how to get out of here. The thing that used to be Cathy seems to be getting closer, though it's impossible to tell. Martin and Jon collide with several mirrors as they stumble along through the maze.

Jon stops in his tracks, nearly pulling Martin's arm out of its socket and almost falling forward himself. “Here!” he shouts, gesturing with the torch.

Martin turns to look at what he's illuminating. Instead of a mirror from floor to ceiling, there's a door. It does have a mirror on it covering almost the entire thing, rendering it nearly indistinguishable from the rest if not for the knob and the narrow strip of darkness underneath it. In the mirror, Martin can see himself and Jon and the shambling horror approaching them. Martin darts forward and scrambles for the knob, keeping a tight hold on Jon's hand all the while.

The door opens easily, although Martin does try to push it first, and that doesn't work, so he pulls it and they both stumble through. Jon slams the door behind them and shines the torch at the doorknob. There's a lock, which Jon lets go of Martin's hand to close. As soon as the door is locked, there's a long shriek of fury from inside the mirror maze, then silence.

“Is it- is it gone?” Martin asks.

Jon doesn't reply, just waits. When there's no more sound from the other side of the door, he answers, “I- I think so.”

He shines the torch around the room, which is small and empty except for a rotting wooden table and peeling wallpaper, and a door on the other side. A lot of doors in this place. Martin's not a big fan of that. Or the monsters. Doesn't look like there's anything here though, so it seems that they might get a break for a minute. After Jon finishes his inspection of the room, he sinks down to the floor with an exhausted exhale. Martin sits down next to him, the awkwardness of the situation overshadowed by the adrenaline still pumping through his veins.

“Flesh,” Jon says after a while, and Martin is confused for a minute until he realizes he's talking about the Entity this might be. “I don't know... I don't know what else could…” Martin can't tell, since Jon's not pointing the torch directly at his own face, but he thinks Jon looks like he's going to be sick. Martin feels about the same.

“Yeah,” Martin says. “Unless it's... something else?”

“Then what the hell else could it be?” Jon snaps, then winces. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it's... it's fine.”

“No, Martin, it's not fine.” Jon sighs, pushes up his glasses. “I shouldn't- I shouldn't take this out on you. I'm just…”

“Scared,” Martin finishes. “Yeah. Me too.”

Jon groans in frustration. “That- that doesn't excuse anything. You've never been anything but good to me, and I've always been an ass to you.”

Martin hesitates, looking down at his lap, hoping he doesn't say something wrong. “Yeah. Especially with the whole suspecting me of murder thing. But you've gotten better. You're improving.”

Jon shakes his head. “I don't deserve- You're a better person than me, Martin. You deserve better than me. I wanted- I thought this would make you happy, and that it would make me happy, but now…” He gestures at the room around them.

“No, this whole thing is my fault. It's my fault we're here, and it's my fault that we're being chased by monsters-”

“No, Martin, it's not your fault. You couldn't have known this would happen.”

Martin sighs. “No, you're right. It's just, I brought you here to impress you, because I thought that you'd like it, and now we're stuck wherever the hell this even is.”

Jon laughs, and the sound surprises Martin enough that he looks back up into Jon's face. “You don't- you don't have to _impress_ me, Martin.”

Martin blinks. “I- what?”

Jon pauses, then reaches out and takes hold of Martin's hand. “You don't have to impress me,” he says again. “You are a wonderful person, Martin. You care so much about the people around you, and you help everyone in the best ways you can, and you remain optimistic even in the face of whatever terror we have to face... You're my anchor, Martin. With everything I've had to deal with, everything we've had to deal with, you're the one constant that I know will always be there. You've always been so kind to me, and I still don't know why.”

“Because I _like_ you, Jon. Ever since I first met you, I've, uh…” He stops, nerves jittering and everything in his mind telling him to shut up, but then he figures, what the hell. “I've had a crush on you since we first met. At first you were just so... mysterious, I guess. The good-looking new guy that no one knew anything about. And- and then you were just so smart and collected, it seemed like you knew everything. And I've always liked the way your glasses slide down your nose when you're focusing on something, and the way you tilt your head a little when you're trying to think, and the way you run your hand through your hair when you're trying to remember something. And everyone says that you don't pull off the scars, but I think you kind of do, and- and-” He chokes, realizing all the things that have come pouring out of his mouth. “Sorry.”

Jon smiles. “You don't have to apologize.”

“I- um... I-” Martin stops trying to form a cohesive thought for a second and just tries to collect himself. “Thank you.”

Jon squeezes Martin's hand before letting go and getting to his feet. “Well, as much as I enjoy this place, what do you say we keep trying to escape?”

Martin takes Jon's hand as his date (boyfriend? Is that a thing now? Martin's not sure) helps him up. “God, yes.”

Jon heads over to the next door and opens it, shining the torch through. Martin cranes his neck to see over Jon's shoulder. There's a set of stairs and nothing else. Jon shrugs and starts down them. The stairs turn and go down a second floor, and there's still nothing. The second set of stairs leads to another room, virtually as empty as the other one. This one looks more rotted, but otherwise it's completely identical, down to the door on the other side. As Jon goes to open this one, there's a sound from behind them, wood scraping against wood. Martin and Jon turn to look.

A panel has opened on the right side of the room and a... person is stumbling out. Jon shines the torch at their face and reveals it to be Abigail. She's not as bad looking as Cathy, but she's clearly... not alive. She's covered in blood and scratches, and not just that. Spiders. Lots of spiders. Some of them sit still, but some of them are crawling, their furry little legs finding holds in her clothes and on her skin. They look like tarantulas, which are usually docile, but Martin can see the swollen bumps leaking green liquid that must be bites.

“Shit,” Jon mumbles beside Martin.

Abigail raises her arm, slowly, jerkily, and points at them. Her jaw drops open and Martin thinks he can see tiny arachnid legs emerging before Jon turns the torch away and toward the door. He fumbles with the doorknob for a few seconds, then pulls it open. Martin thinks he feels something brush against him and he takes off, sprinting out the door as soon as it opens. Jon runs next to him, the beam of the torch swinging wildly. Martin almost doesn't notice the door in front of them before he runs into it, skidding to a halt just before he collides. He throws his arm out to steady Jon as he nearly falls after the sudden stop.

As Jon wrenches this door open, a small bit of the hallway is filled with dim light. Martin can't help but feel a small bit of relief at the light as they enter the room. This one is just as empty as the ones before, although it does have what looks like a set of closet doors on one side and a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Jon slams the door behind them. There's no lock. Martin goes to the other door, tries to open it.

“It's locked,” he shouts to Jon on the other side of the room.

Jon rattles the doorknob on his door. “This one's locked from the other side.”

And then the wall begins to slide open. There's someone, or something, on the other side. Martin tries the door again. It doesn't yield. Jon throws the torch at the figure, missing but putting a sizable dent in the wall. Martin continues trying to get the door, turning away as whatever it is emerges from the wall. He feels something grab his shoulder and nearly screams before he hears Jon's voice next to his ear.

“Closet,” he says.

Jon wrenches one of the closet doors open and waits for Martin to get in before he enters himself. Before Jon pulls the door shut, Martin catches a glimpse of the thing, which used to be Will but is now a bloody mess. Will moves much faster and slams into the closet door just as Jon closes it. Martin backs away until he hits the wall, which is only about a step and a half. The light from the bulb enters the closet in narrow strips from the slats on the upper half of the door. Will beats against the door for a minute or so, then backs off. Martin can see his shadow through the slats. He turns away and looks at Jon instead.

Jon looks bad. His glasses are crooked and his breathing is shallow. His eyes look slightly glazed over.

“I don't know what this is,” he says, more to himself than to Martin. “I don't know what it is.”

“It's okay, Jon, you don't have to-”

“It's not an artifact,” Jon says, shaking his head and not even indicating that he's hearing Martin. “It's not a Leitner. It must be... something must have lured us here to target us. Buried, Web, Stranger, Flesh, Spiral? I don't know, I don't know what it is, I need-”

And Martin does something that he never thought he'd be brave enough to do. If he thought about it now, he'd probably still not be brave enough to do it, but he's not thinking about it. He's acting purely out of instinct and emotion, because he's very stressed out and there's a good chance that they both might die in a couple minutes, so what the hell.

Martin kisses Jon.

It's rushed and messy and tentative. Martin isn't used to kissing people, and he suspects Jon isn't either. But at the same time, it's wonderful. Martin has wanted to kiss Jon for a long time, longer than he cares to think about, but now he finally has. Yeah, they might get killed by a terrible monster in the next couple minutes, but this would almost make it worth it.

Then Martin fully processes what he just did and pulls away, stammering an apology. “S-sorry, I-”

Jon kisses Martin back.

Martin is overwhelmed by surprise for a second, stiffening unconsciously. Then he feels Jon's lips on his, and he realizes that _Jon_ just kissed _him_ , and he melts. He buries his hands in Jon's hair, all hesitation burned away. He feels Jon's arms around his shoulders, bringing the two of them even closer. And then, too soon, Jon pulls away. They both let go, and Martin fights off the urge to apologize.

Jon clears his throat. “I- um, thank you,” he says, voice clipped and awkward.

Martin can't keep himself from laughing. “‘Thank you?’”

To his credit, Jon manages to remain somewhat collected. “I- yes. Thank you.”

Martin smiles, his entire chest feeling light and buzzy. “Well, you're welcome then.”

The warm look on Jon's face fades as he glances out of the closet doors. “We should probably deal with that thing, shouldn't we.”

The concept should be terrifying, but at this point Martin is so elated he barely notices. “I think the hole in the wall is still open.”

“And if we can get past that... thing, we may be able to find a way out.” Jon sighs. “Better than nothing, I suppose.”

“On three?” Martin suggests.

Jon nods and quietly counts down. They both throw open the doors, making a break for the still open wall across the room. Before they can reach it, a shape lunges at them. Will. His limbs are all wrong, his face dilapidated and graying. His stomach is distended and bloated, and is looks like some of his organs are starting to spill out from under his shirt. From long bloody scratches across his face, white maggots are squirming. Worst of all, one of his eyes is hanging out, bouncing against his cheek. He snarls and raises his hands, tipped in clawed and blackened fingernails.

Martin screams and staggers backwards. Jon falls as he trips over his own feet. Will ignores him and starts coming for Martin. Purely out of instinct, Martin swings a fist at him. It's not a very good punch, because Martin has never had cause to try and punch a person before, but it connects with the side of Will's head.

Martin would have expected Will to take the hit silently, or for it to just not affect him at all. Instead, he crumples, clutching his head with a groan. The next sound he makes is something that Martin never would have anticipated.

He says, clearly and indignantly, “Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck?”

“Sorry, what?” Martin says, taking a step backwards and trying to understand what's going on.

“You're not supposed to hit the actors, dude!” Will says, straightening with a wince that pulls on the slashes in his face.

“Actors?” Jon says, climbing to his feet.

The light suddenly brightens and fluorescent strips on the ceiling turn on. “Yeah,” Will says. “Actors? It's all makeup and special effects, dipshit. We're actors for the haunted house. You aren't supposed to touch us.”

“Haunted- oh, goddammit,” Jon says, looking at Martin. “Did you know about this?”

“What? No!” Martin says. “Dave told me it was a museum!”

Jon sighs. “Right, I know.”

“Of course, I would never-” Martin feels the panic rising. “I wouldn't- Dave told me-”

“It's a prank,” Will says, peeling off his dangling eye, revealing the perfectly normal eye underneath it. “Y'know, for Halloween? Get someone to go to a haunted house without realizing it? It's a thing, apparently, you're the third one we've had this week.”

Jon pointedly ignores what he's saying. “Alright, fine, it's a wonderful joke, could you please just show us the way out?”

Twenty minutes later, they're standing out on the curb again. The snow has stopped now, leaving just a fine dust of powder on the streets. They both have their phones back and Martin had a meager refund that Abigail had reluctantly given him after Jon had engaged her in a rather aggressive confrontation before they left. Martin has half a mind to call Dave and tell him off, but at this point he's too tired.

“I didn't know about it,” Martin says to Jon. “I swear, I would never-”

"I know you wouldn't. I trust you," Jon says, and after a moment takes Martin’s hand. “This doesn't seem like anything you'd ever consider.”

Martin shakes his head, relief flooding through him. “It's not. I think we both have enough Eldritch horrors to deal with when we're at work; I don't think we need anymore outside it.” There's a silence before Martin says, “I’m sorry. This was a pretty shitty first date, wasn't it?”

Jon shakes his head, smiling slightly. “No. I quite enjoyed... parts of it. I could have done without the spiders, and the gore, and the mirrors.”

“Agreed.”

“Let's just go out for dinner next time, shall we? Does Tuesday work for you?”

Even in the cold, Martin can feel his heart warming.

“Yeah. I think it does.”


End file.
